Professor Simon Hooker

Abstract:

33 mm plasma channels produced in a gas-filled capillary discharge and 40 TW, 40 fs laser pulses were used to produce GeV electron beams in a multi-table-top setup.

Abstract:

A molecular dynamic (MD) code is used to compare the rates of heating by inverse Bremsstrahlung (IB) for circularly and linearly polarized radiation. For low intensities the heating rate is found to be independent of polarization. However, at higher intensities the variation of the heating rate with the radiation intensity is found to exhibit a sharper peak for circularly polarized than linearly polarized radiation. This difference is explained in terms of differences in the variation of the electron quiver speed during the optical cycle for linearly and circularly polarized radiation. An analytical expression--which includes a term which is nonlinear in the density of the plasma--for the rate of IB heating is fitted to the rates calculated by the MD code.